Flood (Überschwemmung)
Wilhelm Lehmbruck
German, 1881–1919
(1914)
A drypoint print in which Wilhelm Lehmbruck uses two nude figures—one towering and bent over another—to explore human vulnerability and mourning as if carved into the page.
You first notice the sculptural weight of the standing body's rounded thighs and arched back rendered in deeply incised, velvety lines, set against horizontal hatching that reads like rising water and a ghostly reflection, creating a tense, intimate scene of motion and sorrow.
Bringing his sculptor’s eye to printmaking, Lehmbruck used drypoint’s rich, tactile marks to translate Expressionist melancholy into graphic form, expanding how volume, emotion, and modern anxiety could be conveyed on paper.
Medium
Drypoint
Dimensions
plate: 15 3/8 x 11 3/4" (39 x 29.8 cm); sheet: 22 13/16 x 17 7/16" (58 x 44.3 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Samuel A. Berger
Accession
386.1954
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
